Car was driving along (in the rain) and died going up a small hill. It turns over and sometimes it gets a small puff of a fire (very little and I mean very little) at the end of the crank. We saw that the crank sensor had been slightly cut by a fan belt (the sensor broke off its post and the wire drooped into the belt). We replaced the sensor but still doesn't start. There is spark coming from all of the front 3 wires (2.5 engine). they don't look exceedingly hot but there is spark. There is gas as you can see that the plugs are wet after trying to start. We even tried to isolate the fuel and turned the pump off and tried starting fluid but still nothing.
The timing belt is still intact and we did replace it not all that long ago. Any ideas?

 

did you also replace the TENSIONER? cause if it jumped time, it will do exactly what you describe. also, and i have NO experience on the 2.5, the ign distributors on these cars are a problem area

 

I talked to a guy at the Mazda service and he seemed to think that the distributor would either be working or not. Is it easy enough to check if it has jumped time?

 

first off, do your homework on the distributor. and do NOT include dealer service when you do. when you call service, you are talking to a service rep. NOT a techician, which, even in this case, probably wont help. think of a service rep as someone who is way below a tech, and is great at giving generic answers

to see if it has jumped time, you have to remove the front plastic timing covers and line up the crank and cams. dunno if that is easy for you or not. for me, it is easy, but takes a long time